Our latest Bronto poll question asked, “Have you ever used the SPAM button in Yahoo! to mark all messages as SPAM even if they were not?” We uncovered that 46% stated they have not used the spam button to delete messages in mass. You can see below that users can easily select all messages and then deem them as spam with the click of a button.
However, 21% did in fact admit that yes they have clicked the spam button and knowingly marked messages that were not spam as spam. (Our poll also found that currently 38% don’t use Yahoo! as their email provider). You can see below the message that a user receives after they mark a message spam, clearly indicating their actions and assuring that Yahoo!’s spam guard will improve through their actions.
The option consumers are given within Yahoo! to deem messages as spam does indeed affect the deliverability of email marketing campaigns – thus consumers should take this option seriously. Consumers need to accurately use the tools Yahoo! has given them in order to receive the messages they want. My motto is “play fair” – don’t tamper a sender’s reputation by bad consumer behavior.
Kimberly Snyder
Account Manager at Bronto
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s surprising that you’re trying to blame the victims, here. Yahoo! (like every major ISP) knows about these habits already — they know way more about their users than any outside sender ever will — and they take it into account in their reputation algorithm.
If someone is deleting your mail (no matter which button they use to do it), it’s clear that they don’t find you interesting. They don’t want your mail. It isn’t relevant. Why keep sending it to them?
J.D. I really appreciate your comments on the blog post. As somebody who works at ReturnPath and thinks about deliverability all the time - you offer an insider’s perspective about Yahoo!’s spam algorithms.
Thanks for your thoughts and comments to our blog - I look forward to continuing the conversation.
J.D. said:
“If someone is deleting your mail (no matter which button they use to do it), it’s clear that they don’t find you interesting.”
No it’s not, that’s nonsense and the declarative tone just makes it worse. It’s not any more clear whether they find the mail “interesting” in many such cases than whether a user who skips past relevant search results in a wall of Google text finds those results interesting. This all or nothing thinking is wrongheaded. I consult with a client who regularly calls up a sampling of (opt in) complainers (FBL or direct) when there’s a correct phone record from the opt in to ask why they opted out and to engage them one last time. After talking to them on the phone, a fair amount of the SCOMP crowd admit that they didn’t mean to report the email as spam and they actually end up wanting to talk about the service and get more information and sign back up. You’d be surprised - try it yourself and you’ll find out you’re wrong (unless of course you’re sending stuff to people who really didn’t ask for anything at all).
There’s a threshhold level (I’m sure it varies by person) of information displayed in a tabular, summary format that individuals can process and at some point they simply stop paying attention to what they’re doing. No one denies this is true in human interface design in general or in copywriting and it’s also not true in email - email isn’t special, people just think it is.